Daniel Defoe eBook

“I am not the first,” Defoe said in another
place, “that has been stoned for saying the
truth. I cannot but think that as time and the
conviction of their senses will restore men to love
the peace now established in this nation, so they
will gradually see I have acted no part but that of
a lover of my country, and an honest man.”

Time has undeniably shown that in these efforts to
promote party peace and national union Defoe acted
like a lover of his country, and that his aims were
the aims of a statesmanlike as well as an honest man.
And yet his protestations of independence and spontaneity
of action, with all their ring of truth and all their
solemnity of asseveration, were merely diplomatic
blinds. He was all the time, as he afterwards
admitted, when the admission could do no harm except
to his own passing veracity, acting as the agent of
Harley, and in enjoyment of an “appointment”
from the Queen. What exactly the nature of his
secret services in Scotland and elsewhere were, he
very properly refused to reveal. His business
probably was to ascertain and report the opinions of
influential persons, and keep the Government informed
as far as he could of the general state of feeling.
At any rate it was not as he alleged, mere curiosity,
or the fear of his creditors, or private enterprise,
or pure and simple patriotic zeal that took Defoe
to Scotland. The use he made of his debts as
diplomatic instruments is curious. He not merely
practised his faculties in the management of his creditors,
which one of Lord Beaconsfield’s characters
commends as an incomparable means to a sound knowledge
of human nature; but he made his debts actual pieces
in his political game. His poverty, apparent,
if not real, served as a screen for his employment
under Government. When he was despatched on secret
missions, he could depart wiping his eyes at the hardship
of having to flee from his creditors.

CHAPTER VI.

DR. SACHEVERELL, AND THE CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT.

Some of Defoe’s biographers have claimed for
him that he anticipated the doctrines of Free Trade.
This is an error. It is true that Defoe was never
tired of insisting, in pamphlets, books, and number
after number of the Review, on the all-importance
of trade to the nation. Trade was the foundation
of England’s greatness; success in trade was
the most honourable patent of nobility; next to the
maintenance of the Protestant religion, the encouragement
of trade should be the chief care of English statesmen.
On these heads Defoe’s enthusiasm was boundless,
and his eloquence inexhaustible. It is true also
that he supported with all his might the commercial
clauses of the Treaty of Utrecht, which sought to
abolish the prohibitory duties on our trade with France.
It is this last circumstance which has earned for
him the repute of being a pioneer of Free Trade.